John SaylesFilmography

In the Electric Mist

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary Steenburgen, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: A detective tracking a serial killer who preys on young women finds his investigation complicated by a glamorous Hollywood starlet and a ruthless crime kingpin in director Bertrand Tavernier's adaptation of the James Lee Burke novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski Read More

Great Directors

Actors: Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes

Obscene

Actors: Barney Rosset, Amiri Baraka, Jim Carroll, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Al Goldstein

Synopsis: To countless avant-garde novelists, filmmakers, and playwrights, publisher Barney Rosset -- proprietor of the legendary Grove Press -- qualifies as an undisputed hero. Via scores of in-court legal battles, Rosset fought aggressively and valiantly to defend the release of works as varied as William S. Burroughs Read More

My Mexican Shivah

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Raquel Pankowsky, David Ostrosky, Sharon Zundel, Emilio Savinni, Lenny Zundel

Synopsis: The passing of a Mexican Jew whose appetite for life was stronger than his spiritual discipline makes for a difficult set of funeral arrangements in this comedy from filmmaker Alejandro Springall. Moishe (Sergio Klainer) was a happy-go-lucky guy living in Mexico City's Jewish quarter until the day Read More

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Sarah Bolger, Andrew McCarthy

Synopsis: Mark S. Waters's adaptation of the popular fantasy novels The Spiderwick Chronicles tells the tale of the Graces, a family who must adapt to their new strange surroundings. As the story begins, twin brothers Jared and Simon, along with their sister Mallory and their mother, move away from the big Read More

Honeydripper

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Danny Glover, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Keb' Mo', Yaya DaCosta, Charles S. Dutton, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Kel Mitchell

Synopsis: Tyrone (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of the Honeydripper juke joint. When business at the once-popular club begins to trail off and Tyrone hires unpredictable electric guitarist Sonny (Gary Clark Jr.) against his better judgment, Tyrone's last-ditch bid to draw in crowds during harvest time has Read More

Edge of Outside

Synopsis: A documentary produced for the Turner Classic Movies cable station, Edge of Outside surveys the careers of various filmmakers who have attempted to bring their uncompromised visions to the screen. Interspersing clips of classic films, the filmmakers take a look at the careers of such famous Read More

Tell Them Who You Are

Actors: Haskell Wexler, Mark S. Wexler, Peter Bart, James Becket, Verna Bloom

Synopsis: Mark Wexler is a successful photojournalist who has also distinguished himself as a documentary filmmaker, but in many ways he has spent much of his life in the shadow of his more famous father, Haskell Wexler. One of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers, Haskell is also known as a director (he Read More

Silver City

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Danny Huston, Maria Bello, Billy Zane, Chris Cooper, Richard Dreyfuss, Daryl Hannah, Kris Kristofferson, Mary Kay Place, Miguel Ferrer, Thora Birch

Synopsis: Celebrated writer and director John Sayles turns his eye to politics in America in this drama. The son of respected Colorado politician Senator Jud Pilager (Michael Murphy), Dicky Pilager (Chris Cooper) is a charming but half-bright man with a bad habit of mangling the English language and a Read More

The Alamo

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Patrick Wilson, Jordi Mollà, Emilio Echeverria

Synopsis: Re-teaming Dennis Quaid with John Lee Hancock, the director of 2002's The Rookie, The Alamo retells the story of the historic 1836 battle in the Texan War of Independence. Facing 4,000 Mexican troops, 186 Texan soldiers and volunteers -- including William Travis (Patrick Wilson), Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton Read More

Casa de los Babys

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden, Daryl Hannah, Susan Lynch, Mary Steenburgen

Synopsis: John Sayles' Casa de los Babys tells the tale of a half-dozen American women who travel to Latin America in order to pick up their adopted children. They all stay at the same motel while they each wade through the bureaucracy. Sharing with each other their fears, hopes, dreams, and frustrations at Read More

Sunshine State

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Edie Falco, Angela Bassett, Jane Alexander, Ralph Waite, James McDaniel, Timothy Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, Gordon Clapp, Miguel Ferrer

Synopsis: Writer and director John Sayles returns with another multi-layered look at an American community, subtly exploring how race, class, economics, and both national and regional history come together to shape people's lives. Plantation Island is a community on the coast of Florida; the island was once Read More

Return of the Secaucus 7

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Bruce MacDonald, Maggie Renzi, Adam Le Fevre, Maggie Cousineau, Gordon Clapp, Jean Passanante, Karen Trott, Mark Arnott

Synopsis: College friends reunite for a New England summer weekend in this low-budget first feature by accomplished independent filmmaker John Sayles. A predecessor of the well-paced, character-driven films in Sayles' future, Secaucus Seven also looks ahead to the 1980s ensemble movies that it Read More

Girlfight

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Michelle Rodriguez, Jaime Tirelli, Paul Calderon, Santiago Douglas, John Sayles

Synopsis: Karyn Kusama makes her debut with this sensitive, subtly told coming-of-age story about boxing and love. Diana (Michelle Rodriguez) is a tough though painfully honest girl living in Brooklyn. Surly, frustrated, and directionless, Diana seems to have a ticket on the express train to expulsion; she Read More

Santitos

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dolores Heredia, Demián Bichir, Alberto Estrella, Roberto Cobo, Ana Bertha Espin

Synopsis: Santitos is a character-driven comedy about a young Mexican woman who has to come to terms with the loss of her teenage daughter. Esperanza's daughter Blanca suddenly and mysteriously dies in the hospital where she was having her tonsils removed. Shortly afterward, the vision of a saint appears on Read More

American Storytellers

Actors: John McNaughton, Harold Ramis, John Sayles, Forest Whitaker

Synopsis: Kevin Mukherji directs the documentary American Storytellers. Offering discussion about independent filmmaking, the film includes interviews with directors John McNaughton, Harold Ramis, John Sayles, and Forest Whitaker. They individually discuss their influences and experiences in the film Read More

Limbo

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, David Strathairn, Vanessa Martinez, Kris Kristofferson, Casey Siemaszko, Kathryn Grody, Rita Taggart, Michael Laskin

Synopsis: Writer/director John Sayles once again takes his audience to a place they may never have been before (this time both psychologically and geographically). Joe Gastineau (David Strathairn) lives in Juneau, Alaska, where his life has been stuck in neutral for about 25 years. When he was young, Joe Read More

FilmFest, Vol. 2

Gridlock'd

Actors: Tim Roth, Tupac Shakur, Thandie Newton, Charles Fleischer, Howard Hesseman

Synopsis: In this hard-edged drama with a strong undercurrent of dark comedy, Stretch (Tim Roth) and Spoon (Tupac Shakur) are two friends who share both a passion for music and a dependence on heroin. Stretch and Spoon play in a jazz combo with Cookie (Thandie Newton), and after a New Year's Eve gig, they Read More

Men With Guns

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Danny Rivera, Federico Luppi, Damian Delgado, Dan Rivera Gonzalez, Tania Cruz, Damián Alcázar, Mandy Patinkin, Kathryn Grody, Iguandili Lopez

Synopsis: A powerful political allegory set in an unnamed Latin American country, Men With Guns concerns Dr. Fuentes (Federico Luppi), an elderly physician long involved with a group that trains young people to provide health care for the poverty-stricken citizens of the outlying hill country, where small Read More

Mimic

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S. Dutton

Synopsis: While one would imagine that the average New Yorker would be used to dealing with bugs after years of apartment dwelling, a scientific experiment gone wrong results in an insect that even Raid can't handle in this sci-fi/horror thriller. In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading a deadly disease Read More

Lone Star

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Miriam Colon, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Joe Morton, Ron Canada, Clifton James, Kris Kristofferson

Synopsis: Reminiscent of a fine novel in depth and complexity, writer-director John Sayles' acclaimed drama uses the investigation of a 25-year-old murder as the framework for a detailed exploration of life in a Texas border town. The nominal center of the film is Sheriff Sam Deeds (the superb, subtle Chris Cooper Read More

The Quick and the Dead

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Roberts Blossom, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobin Bell

Synopsis: Director Sam Raimi brings his trademark comic book-influenced visual panache to this post-modern Western. Sharon Stone stars as Ellen, a mysterious female gunslinger who arrives in the frontier hamlet of Redemption for a contest pitting quick-draw artists against each other. The event is the Read More

Men of War

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dolph Lundgren, Charlotte Lewis, B.D. Wong, Kevin Tighe, Anthony John Denison

Synopsis: Seemingly content living the life of a derelict, former mercenary Nick (Dolph Lundgren) agrees -- reluctantly and only after he is offered a large fortune from two mining company executives -- to gather up a unit of fellow soldiers of fortune and fly to the island of Jakarta in order to convince Read More

The Secret of Roan Inish

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Mick Lally, Eileen Colgan, John Lynch, Jeni Courtney, Richard Sheridan

Synopsis: The magic of folklore forms the basis of this Irish tale by writer-director John Sayles. Adapted from the book Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry, the 1940s story is told from the point-of-view of Fiona (Jeni Courtney), a young girl sent to live with her grandparents in an Irish fishing town. Her Read More

My Life's in Turnaround

Actors: Eric Schaeffer, Donal Lardner Ward, Lisa Gerstein

Synopsis: Eric Schaeffer and Donald Ward managed to scrape together 22,000 dollars to make this independent film about the making of an independent film. Schaeffer plays a New York City cabdriver (which he really was), while Ward co-stars as his roommate (which he really was). They have no money, no script Read More

Passion Fish

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Mary McDonnell, Alfre Woodard, David Strathairn, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Nora Dunn

Synopsis: With his trademark emphasis on character development and dialogue, writer/director John Sayles tells the story of May-Alice Culhane (Mary McDonnell), a New York soap opera actress left paralyzed by a car accident. As the film opens, she lies in a hospital bed, confused and scared, watching her own Read More

Malcolm X

Actors: Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Angela Bassett, Al Freeman, Jr., Delroy Lindo, Albert Hall

Synopsis: Writer-director Spike Lee's epic portrayal of the life and times of the slain civil rights leader Malcolm X begins with the cross-cut imagery of the police beating of black motorist Rodney King juxtaposed with an American flag burning into the shape of the letter X. When the film's narrative Read More

Straight Talk

Actors: Dolly Parton, James Woods, Griffin Dunne, Jerry Orbach, Michael Madsen, Deirdre O'Connell

Synopsis: Dolly Parton and James Woods as the screen's hottest new romantic team? That's only one of several casting surprises in this romantic comedy. Shirlee Kenyon (Dolly Parton) has had enough of life in her small Arkansas town, not to mention her small-minded Arkansas boyfriend Steve (Michael Madsen). Read More

Matinee

Actors: John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub

Synopsis: John Goodman's full-throttle performance as a William Castle-inspired schlockmeister propels Joe Dante's delightful and charming comedy Matinee. The film takes place during the fall 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when America's innocence began to crumble. Goodman plays film producer Lawrence Read More

City of Hope

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Vincent Spano, Joe Morton, Tony Lo Bianco, Anthony John Denison, Barbara Williams

Synopsis: A city pulses with racial problems, political corruption, and small-time crime in this ambitious microcosm of urban life, written and directed by John Sayles. Nick Rinaldi (Vincent Spano), a lost soul usually high on drink and drugs, has spent his life in one New Jersey city, getting free rides Read More

Little Vegas

Actors: Anthony John Denison, Catherine O'Hara, Anne Francis, Michael Nouri, Perry Lang

Synopsis: Anthony John Denison stars as Carmine DeCarlo, a man trying to break free of familial mob ties after his middle-aged lover (Anne Francis) dies. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Untama Giru

Actors: Kaoru Kobayashi, John Sayles, Chikako Aoyama

Synopsis: Okinawan-born filmmaker Go Takamine directs this hallucinogenic Robin Hood-style tale set in the director's native island in 1969. Giru (Kaoru Kobayashi) works at a sugar refinery populated by some unusual characters: one is the owner's curvy mistress Mare (Chikako Aoyama), who lounges about the Read More

Breaking In

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Reynolds, Casey Siemaszko, Sheila Kelley, Lorraine Toussaint, Albert Salmi

Synopsis: In this comedy (which claims a strong pedigree -- it was written by John Sayles and directed by Bill Forsyth), Burt Reynolds plays Ernie, an aging career burglar who knows just about everything there is to know about breaking and entering. One night, Ernie has stealthily slipped into a home only Read More

Shannon's Deal

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jamey Sheridan

Synopsis: Cynical Philadelphia lawyer-turned-p.i. Jamey Sheridan aims his investigatory skills at an international smuggling ring. Sheridan wants to know who's supplying the weapons that are leaving the country, and who's supplying the drugs that are rolling in. The deeper he digs, the dirtier it gets; Read More

Eight Men Out

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: John Cusack, Clifton James, David Strathairn, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, D.B. Sweeney, Michael Lerner

Synopsis: Writer/director John Sayles' dramatization of the most infamous episode in professional sports -- the fix of the 1919 World Series -- is considered by many to be among his best films and arguably the best baseball movie ever made. This adaptation of Eliot Asinof's definitive study of the scandal Read More

Matewan

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Chris Cooper, Will Oldham, Mary McDonnell, Bob Gunton, James Earl Jones

Synopsis: Independent filmmaker John Sayles creates one of his more artistic works with this period feature about a volatile 1920s labor dispute in the town of Matewan, West Virginia. Matewan is a coal town where the local miners' lives are controlled by the powerful Stone Mountain Coal Company. The company Read More

Wild Thing

Crew: Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Knepper, Kathleen Quinlan, Robert Davi, Maury Chaykin, Betty Buckley

Synopsis: After his hippie parents are killed in a botched drug deal, a child is taken in by a bag lady in this implausible drama. Wild Thing (Rob Knepper) grows up to be the champion of street justice, espousing a 1960s philosophy and coming to the aid of the helpless and oppressed. Jane (Kathleen Quinlan) Read More

Something Wild

Actors: Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, Ray Liotta, Margaret Colin

Synopsis: A wildly inventive and entertaining comic nightmare from former Roger Corman prodigy Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this screwball odyssey is a ride to remember. Jeff Daniels plays clean-cut New York bond trader Charlie Driggs, who accepts a ride home from a strange but attractive Read More

Hard Choices

Actors: Gary McCleery, John Seitz, John Sayles, John Snyder, Martin Donovan

Synopsis: In this odd mix of social commentary, forbidden romance, police action thriller, and teenage delinquency, a well-meaning social worker slowly careens off the charts when a 15-year-old teen is about to receive a stiff sentence as an accessory to a crime. Bobby (Gary McCleery) is driving the getaway Read More

The Clan of the Cave Bear

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Daryl Hannah, Pamela Reed, James Remar, Thomas G. Waites, John Doolittle

Synopsis: Cinematographer Michael Chapman directed this John Sayles adaptation of Jean M. Auel's best-selling ode to Cro-Magnon women. The story begins at the moment in pre-history when the last of the Neanderthal men were becoming extinct and the superior race of Cro-Magnons were starting to supersede Read More

Unnatural Causes

Synopsis: Based on several actual case histories, Unnatural Causes stars John Ritter as a Vietnam veteran dying of Agent Orange poisoning. Alfre Woodard co-stars as real-life V.A. administration benefits counselor Maude DeVictor. Battling against official denials and bureaucratic red tape, Ms. DeVictor is Read More

The Brother from Another Planet

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter, Songwriter

Actors: Joe Morton, Darryl Edwards, Steve James, Leonard Jackson, Bill Cobbs

Synopsis: Filmmaker John Sayles' first bonafide box-office success, Brother from Another Planet centers on a black escaped slave from a faraway planet (Joe Morton) who finds himself on the mean streets Harlem. Though the locals are put off by the slave's inability to speak, they are won over by his Read More

Baby It's You

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Rosanna Arquette, Vincent Spano, Joanna Merlin, Jack Davidson, Nick Ferrari

Synopsis: In the early 1960s, two very different New Jersey high schoolers share their first love in this bittersweet romantic drama, an early feature by writer/director John Sayles. Jill Rosen (Rosanna Arquette) is a sweet, overachieving Jewish girl heading for college to become an actor; "Sheik" Read More

Lianna

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Linda Griffiths, Jane Hallaren, David de Vries, Jo Henderson, Jessica Wight MacDonald

Synopsis: After helping to kick-start the independent film movement in America with The Return of the Secaucus Seven, John Sayles wrote, directed, and edited his second feature, about a woman who finds herself staring life over after coming out of the closet as a lesbian. Lianna (Linda Griffiths) is a woman Read More

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Kevin Bacon, Maria Tucci, Lynn Milgrim, Sudie Bond

Synopsis: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute is a compilation film of three feminist yet disheartening stories of failed relationships. The first story features Virginia (Ellen Barkin) whose deadbeat husband has just left her and their three children. As a result, she is forced to go on welfare. She begins Read More

The Challenge

Crew: Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Donna Kei Benz, Atsuo Nakamura, Calvin Jung

Synopsis: The Challenge is a classy effort directed by John Frankenheimer. Scott Glenn stars as an American boxer who finds himself in the middle of a Japanese blood feud. Toshiro Mifune and Atsuo Nakamura plays the last surviving brothers of an ancient samurai family, embroiled in a battle of the Read More

The Howling

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski

Synopsis: This groundbreaking, darkly-comic horror film from director Joe Dante changed the look and feel of werewolf movies in ways light-years distant from Universal's horror classic The Wolf Man. The story begins with television reporter/anchor Karen White (Dee Wallace) taking part in a dangerous police Read More

Alligator

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael Vincente Gazzo, Dean Jagger, Perry Lang, Henry Silva

Synopsis: Lewis Teague directed this sly horror-comedy from a script by John Sayles, which plays off the old urban legend about the dangers of flushing one's pet alligator down the toilet. One such unlucky reptile is "Ramon," who survives in the subterranean cesspool by feeding on the steroid-saturated Read More

A Perfect Match

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Colleen Dewhurst, Charles Durning

Synopsis: John Sayles, of Trial of the Catonsville 9 and Brother From Another Planet fame, wrote the teleplay for A Perfect Match from an original story by director Mel Damski and Andre Guttfruend. Fashion designer Linda Kelsey is diagnosed as suffering from a rare form of anemia. Kelsey's only hope is to Read More

Battle Beyond the Stars

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon, Darlanne Fluegel

Synopsis: Produced by Roger Corman and scripted by John Sayles, Battle Beyond the Stars is a cheerfully blatant imitation of The Seven Samurai (or at least the American remake The Magnificent Seven). A peaceloving planet is attacked by malevolent aliens. The powers-that-be hire a group of mercenaries Read More

The Lady in Red

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Pamela Sue Martin, Robert Conrad, Louise Fletcher, Christopher Lloyd, Laurie Heineman, Robert Hogan

Synopsis: Escaping from her childhood life of poverty and abuse on the farm, in the 1930s, Polly Franklin (Pamela Sue Martin) sets her sights on Hollywood as the promised land and leaves home. However, she doesn't get that far - she lands in Chicago instead. Taking the low-paying jobs which are available to Read More

Piranha

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller

Synopsis: The sophomore effort for director Joe Dante, a future protégé of Steven Spielberg, this low-budget, high-camp horror spoof of Jaws (1977) features several chiller stars of yesteryear. Insurance investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is dispatched to find two missing teenage hikers near Lost Read More